HWB: Horses with benefits! 1.0

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"I want you to create a deck for me that's all eagles, bears and horses. That will make me happy." - My girlfriend, 24/10/16, after a hard day dealing with real life.

Who am I to argue with that?

With these guidelines we're basically looking at an Eagle deck with Beorn and all the mounts that work.

It's a slightly janky combat deck that can't quest at all. Beorn is all front-loaded and carries us in the early game. Even if he does eventually die for good, the others should have things covered by then.

Mulligan for Steward of Gondor

Heroes (Bears)

Beorn because i had to, he's the only bear to be found and luckily sphere matches eagles. Elfhelm let's us get the best use out of the mounts. Finally i needed a hero to make eagles work best and given the other (mount) theme, Éomer suggested himself. He likes to mount up anyway and gets good use out of his ability in an eagle deck.

Allies (Eagles)

A lot of Eagle allies. The plan is obviously to get them vanishing under Eagles of the Misty Mountains. Gwaihir is only 1 copy as he's expensive, unique & his ability isn't essential. Descendant of Thorondor got cut to the sideboard as he was too expensive for his benefit. Landroval made it in with all three copies to maximize your chances of finding him before Beorn croaks.

Honour Guard should buy you a little more time with Beorn & Legolas adds some card draw to the mix. Gandalf is obviously great for whatever you need at the time. Since you start at 32 threat I tend to use him to reduce that.

Attachments (Horses)

Mounts a plenty and some glue to make the deck functional. They should end up as follows...

Elfhelm - 2xArmored Destrier

Éomer - 1xSteward of Gondor, 1xFirefoot, 1xRohan Warhorse, 1xArod and at least 1xSupport of the Eagles though the rest can go on if required.

This let's Elfhelm defend with 3 3 times and discard shadow cards as he goes (assuming you can get engagements worked out correctly) and Éomer gets 6 BASE from just equipping Firefoot alone.

Events

Most of the events are for card draw.

Sneak Attack works for Gandalf obviously but there are shenanigans to be had with sneaking in expensive eagles to go under the Eagles of the Misty Mountains or save Beorn.

Feint, again, helps you prolong Beorn's life.

Card Draw

Without weapons to enable Foe-hammer it's just as well we're running eagles. The Eagles Are Coming! should work out well. There are 16 Eagle cards in the deck.

Legolas will be amazing once you can find him. 3 copies should hopefully keep that time as short as possible.

We Are Not Idle is to straight up thin the deck as there are no dwarves in sight,

Valiant Sacrifice work's great with Eagles.

Resource Generation

Steward of Gondor on Éomer should sort most of it out. You can swap in Errand-riders if worried Elfhelm's resources will go to waste but there are 12 cost worth of cards and he can pay for hard cast Gandalf too if you've been sneaking Gwaihir or Landroval.

Weaknesses

The biggest issue this deck has is it's lack of ranged on Éomer. If it's partner decks can push enemies around that works well or there are Dúnedain Caches in the sideboard that can be changed out for anything that isn't card draw really. That being the second weakness. Finding Legolas early helps!